Abstract

[Abstract]: Rehearsal speed has traditionally been seen to be the prime determinant of individualdifferences in memory span. Recent studies, in the main using young children as theparticipant population, have suggested other contributors to span performance,notably contributions from long-term memory and forgetting and retrieval processesoccurring during recall. In the current research we used structural equation modellingto explore at the construct level individual differences in immediate serial recall withrespect to rehearsal, search, and speed of access to lexical memory. We replicatestandard short-term phenomena; we show that the variables that influence children'sspan performance influence adult performance in the same way; and we show thatlexical memory access appears to be a more potent source of individual differences inimmediate memory than either rehearsal speed or search factors.